A crab anthology: the black crab

I love crab. From the Norman brown crab to the huge Japanese king crab, I’ve tasted many of them. So I invite you to come with me on a crab world tour. In each article, I’ll present different species.

The first crab we’ll meet is the black crab. I’ve found it in Coron, an archipelago located North of the Palawan province in the Philippines. It is also known as the mud crab and the mangrove crab. Those terms don’t really sound good. But this crab is absolutely delicious and also very interesting as an animal.

The scientific name of the black crab is scylla serrata. It lives in mangroves and estuaries in Asia, Africa and Australia. It loves tropical waters, and has no problem with dirt. He thrives on it.

A monster weighting more than 3 kg

It might be called black, but it’s not. It’s brownish, even dark blue or green sometimes. When cooked, it becomes red. All of this is familiar to anyone who knows almost any crab species. But my dear mangrove crab is not any crab. First of all, it’s huge.

My little friend from the market in Coron Town seemed quite big to me, I was very excited. 1.6 kg, yeepee, each claw is like a steak. I bought it immediately. What I didn’t know is that this species can reach easily 3.5 kg. My mighty crab was just a dwarf.

Second of all, the mud crab can resist a lot of things. It’s a tough one. Australia has developped mud crab farming because, contrarily to others, this species tolerates a big amount of water pollution, as nitrate and ammonia.

It tolerates it, which doesn’t mean he’s not contaminated by it. And you know, a crab can live a long life. So you can imagine what kind of chemicals it accumulates year after year. Yummy. Aquaculture crabs are fished when they reach 2 to 4 years, so fortunately they don’t really have time to become chemical bombs.

When I say that black crabs can resist a lot of things, I’m also speaking litterally. Their shell is extremely hard. To crack open the claws of my Filipino crab, it took us a long time, using every tool we could find in the kitchen.

The black crab never gets tired

It is also tireless. Even when it has been fished for several days, it’s still fidgeting like crazy in its basket. It never stops. I’ve walked mine around in a pastic bag, under the hottest sun, then I’ve left it for a few hours, still in the closed bag. When I came back, it was still as excited.

If you’re thinking about killing it with the freezer technique, be patient. You’ll need to leave it at least 2 hours in your freezer to put it to sleep.

Huge, resilient, the black crab is also prolific. Females can give birth to 1 million offspring. The number is so big that it seems absurd. That’s what I call a mummy. Laying hens, you suck.

But even though it can resist the worst pollutions and makes enough babies to rule the world, the mangrove crab aquaculture is limited. Indeed all offspring doesn’t get to grow up, because they have a highly cannibalistic nature.

A crab that eats crab

Most crab species are opportunists. They’re omnivorous scavengers, eating about anything they find. You can feed them vegetables, fish, meat, rotten or not, they’ll take it. And regularly, they molt. This phenomena is called ecdysis. A fantastic video of molting king crab can be seen here.

For a short time, the molting crabs are naked, just the time to get a noew solid shell. For a few days, they’ll have to be very careful. Other crabs will attack them like maniacs if they find them. They feast on each others’ naked flesh as it has no more protection.

Well, all of this dreadful stuff being said, is that mud crab good to eat? My answer is yes, oh yes. Its flesh is firm and sweet, less salted than our Norman brown crabs’. The taste of iodine is also much lighter. As this crab lives in mangroves and estuaries, it filters a lot of fresh water, so it’s not surprising.

Even if my 1.6 kg crab is not a giant compared to what the species can do, I’ve had the crab steaks I was dreaming of. This crab is huge and it also has a lot of flesh. We were two, eating only the crab for dinner, and we’ve had a hard time finishing it. And yet I’m hard to stop when you put a crab in my plate.

So, if you like crab and you encounter one of those, go ahead, try and eat it. In most countries, it’s considered as a delicacy and it is quite expensive. But in the Philippines, mine cost only 8 euros. For such a wonderful meal, it’s a steal.

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5 Comments

Love your site — I’ve been reading your articles all morning and enjoying each one immensely!

I’ve got a story about a Maryland Blue Crab that’s hard to beat.

Back in the summer of 1989, I was crabbing from the dock at the end of my mother’s home on the St. Martin’s River near Bishopville, Maryland. This involved using a piece of chicken tied to a sturdy length of twine — the chicken was readily available, as Mom’s husband (my stepfather) had a 27.500-count chicken farm on his property, and the poor birds died in quantity in the summer heat.

This particular afternoon’s catch included a monster 33cm crab (as measured from its side-spines, not including the spines themselve) that elicited amazement from both stepfather and mother; they had never seen a crab that large roaming St. Martin’s.

We gave her the honour of being amongst the first batch of crabs to be steamed for the week’s dinners, and put her at the top of that bunch, as we feared her sheer mass would keep the other crabs from getting proper (and humane) cooking.

Little did we know that this armored beast was fiercely opposed to becoming our evening meal… as we sat in the dining room to await cooking’s completions, we heard a terrible clamor in the kitchen — the sound of the steamer’s lid hitting the tiling on the floor, followed immediately by a heady thump upon the floor. Crabzilla had escaped her doom, by dint of knocking off the steamer’s cover and diving for the cooler places below!

She seemed to know exactly where she was going — by the time we were able to react to this surprising turn of events, Crabzilla was halfway through the adjoining dining room and was making fast tracks towards the patio.

I hastily retreated to said patio and swept up my crab-catching net, and captured the beast anew as she made way towards the outside door. Having subdued this arthropod menace, I consulted with mother and stepfather…. I argued towards returning the feisty arthropod, so full of joie d’vivre — to the brackish waters of St. Martin’s, but the other two votes went towards sealing her fate in the steamer.

So, as it came to pass, we returned her to her doom — this time, with a heavy brick laid upon the steamer’s lid to prevent another escape — and she went the way of her brethren, red and well-cooked, despite her best efforts to remain on this mortal coil.

Even after more than two decades, I can remember my disappointment at finding out that this (potentially finger-severing) critter contained noticeably LESS meat than any of the numerous 13-cm crabs we’d also caught that day.

Hail to Blue Crabzilla. You will forever live fondly within my memory!

Thank you very much! This story is amazing, do you know what species it was exactly? And by the way, I also have noticed that the smaller crabs tend to have much more meat than the smaller ones, not really sure why…

I had fun reading this post, but most of all I’m extremely jealous. This crab is known locally as alimango. I’ve been eating it since I was a toddler. It is my favorite food of all. I don’t have access to it anymore since leaving the Philippines, except when I visit.

There is a male and female and also a hermaphrodite. The male is bigger and has thicker meat. But I prefer the female with its orange roe inside. In France, the crab I find available has a similar taste but small. I sometimes find Vietnamese crab smuggled into the US which seems to be from the same species as in the Philippines but not as big.

I always dream about eating another alimango. I was in the Philippines in January and I found some at the Salcedo market in Makati. They are a steal as you say. Back at the house I had them cooked with gata or coconut milk. I was having the crabs for lunch dinner and breakfast until I had to leave. For me the alimango is the most delicious food on earth. And it brings back many memories.

Thank you Alex for sharing your memories! I really love this crab too. I can’t wait to be in the Philippines and eat one. Or two or three! Here in Japan we can find some but they are insanely expensive.

And thank you so much for your advice on books, Doreen Fernandez is my new hero.

I’ve been searching for all info and knowledge i could possibly get that are related to this ‘Alimango” or the Philippine King Crab, and i stumbled upon this site. well, all your informations are correct based on what i’ve learned so far.

By the way, i come from Leyte, Philippines and yes, we have those crabs in the pics above and yes they really grow big, usually we grow it here in ponds to be able to control the water levels, you will seldom find one in the wild, if ever you find one it is believed to be coming from the ponds that were able to escape during typhoons since ponds collapse during strong winds, and this is one of the biggest problems crab raisers normally encounter aside from isolated cases of stealing.

I am doing research to avoid these problems and so far i have come up with an idea of compartmentalized growing of King Crabs using bamboo as frame and PE Screen as cover on all sides of a six space compartments including in between spaces, with a height of about 10inches x 10inches width x 14inches length for a single space. This is designed in order to be able to monitor easily the growth of “each” crab and harvest them easily by simply lifting the compartment of six and their goes the six pieces of crabs in no time. Another advantage of such technique is that you can secure all your crabs during typhoons by collecting all compartments and bring them inside the house for cover and put them back in the pond the moment typhoon is passed.Using this technique, you will not be maintaining a wide area of pond since your crabs are arranged in an orderly manner easy to monitor and your feeds are 90% sure to go down their belly. This type of raising crabs is expensive at first since you will be crafting, fabricating the compartments, cells, or cubicle, whatever you call it.

At farm gate rate may run around P500 a kilo, but when it is transported and sold in Cebu or Manila markets it will cost you around P900 already. This January i expect to harvest my first crop of “Alimango” using the above technique. You bet, i am confident to have a good harvest!